p14:12 Hermes was considered to be the messenger god, whom the Romans called Mercury. In Ovid’s famous story Metamorphoses, there is an account of Philemon and Baucis from Lystra, who took in two strangers (Zeus and Hermes) and welcomed them into their home. But the rest of the village rejected them, and for that the village was destroyed—only Philemon and Baucis survived. That story was no doubt in the minds of the people when they welcomed Barnabas and Paul. They did not want to make the same mistake as their ancestors. (See Ovid, Metamorphoses 8.611–725.) Archeologists have found a stone
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